beach vacay 2014: part 1

getting back to my normal routine.

healthy snacks.

Y'all...the beach trip was so fun!! I love that we are beginning a tradition that will hopefully carry on to when I have kids of my own. As I'm growing older, I'm really understanding how important spending time with family really is and I crave being together more and more. I realized this week that we failed to get a family picutre at the beach :( Fortunately, we got plenty of pictures of everybody even if we aren't all in the same picture at the same time!

As mentioned before, I had some goals for this beach trip. I know what you're thinking, it was a vacation Elizabeth, you aren't supposed to have goals and workout and stuff. Well, I'm working on a new lifestyle for myself and the way I'm living doesn't change just because I've gone on vacation. But y'all, I did it! I ran on the beach! It was not magical. It was hard. I was not so naive as to think it would be easy or anything because I have walked in sand before and anyone who has walked in sand knows how hard it is! Y'all can ask Kevin, I complain about having to walk in sand every time we do it.

Yep, I totally ran barefooted. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it but it wasn't that different feeling once I got going! Running, surprisingly, is so much easier than walking! I have no idea why. Maybe because you're pushing off with more oomph and strength? I don't know. Anyways, I ran early one morning, 0.74 miles! Which is almost a whole quarter of a mile further than I thought I did. I used the Fitbit app on my phone and it seems that I was running on the water. Haha! Not really, I just ran on the beach and I am so proud of myself!

The first morning we were there, I was up early enough to see a sliver of sun but it soon disappeared behind clouds that set in for almost the rest of our trip! Surprisingly, all of us really liked the cloudiness because it kept us from being sunburnt and burnt out from the sun and the heat. But, on the last day, I was not disappointed! I saw the sunrise. God even provided some clouds to make the colors even more radiant! I went down to the beach and sat down in the sand and just spent some time watching the skies and marveling at the beauty and vastness of what I was able to see.